Sherman M4A3 with additional sandbag armored rack

I'm getting seriously behind on posting old projects as I have quite a back log building anyhow on to the subject at hand. I painted this M4A3 Sherman with a sandbag rack last year as I found it quite interesting looking with the sandbags.

It's my first attempt using an airbrush and I'm quite pleased with the result although the sandbags had to be done by hand or at least I did them by hand. For paints I used the MIG armor packs which I find are just fantastic especially for newbie airbrushers like myself! They come in packs to include shade, base, highlight removing the need for fiddly mixing which is great. I'm a super fan of MIG as I love the paints and pigments ensuring this product will become my go to armor product and no I don't work for them just really like the products!

Since my friend Nick has a lot of experience painting armor (fantastic blog here with excellent tutorials being just some of the superb things there) I played around with oil paints(Winsor and Newton) as he did for the filters and it indeed does give a very pleasing effect albeit a bit awkward when your not exactly sure of yourself or the process. This I then followed up with my much more familiar MIG pigments to add dust and grime which for me is the most fun!:-)

The photography still needs some work as there is a bit more reddish tinge in places on the model, but it's close enough. I would say after cleaning up miniatures/ tools taking pictures is my least favorite part of the process, but I like to share so not really any away around it although sometimes it's fun to set up scenes and take pics when the mood strikes.

The model itself is a Warlord resin kit and was pretty quick and easy to put together and I like the additional heft of the resin. I have some plastics kits to do but admit I have some trepidation as I don't like the assembly process of plastics or the ultra light weight, but there are some nice looking kits with extra detail that were hard to pass up so see how it goes.

Currently I have some German armor on my desk to give that a try and see how it goes along with two other projects. I usually work on one project at a time but right now I'm painting three different things as I cannot decide from each day which one I should do. I've been pretty busy and distracted so if I've missed commenting on your blogs my apologies, but I do at least try and look if I don't have time to make a reply. Lots of good things out there keep it up!

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Warlord

Adding more Fallschirmjäger

My first submission in the Analogue Hobbies Quaraantine Challenge here. Although I'm still busy I wanted to join in on the fun. Still continuing on with my fallschirmjäger to get them up to where I can have options and this is my 3rd squad for this year, but my 4th overall for my fallschirmjäger force.

The figures are mix of mostly Crusader and Artizan, but I did also add some Foundry(MG over the back) in this unit as well, however a small note I think the Foundry molds are getting old as I had to do quite a bit of clean up which is unusual in that most Foundry products I've purchased over the years had very little of that.

I'm very surprised I as able to keep focused long enough to build a force that I could actually field. I'm not finished by any means, but I can play a game and have a couple options now which I'm very pleased about.

The paints I used were once again mostly Vallejo with some Mig pigments for weathering. Painting the figures was once again challenging but a pleasure to do at the same time largely do to the design of the figures.

I'm not sure what I'll do next as I'm beginning to get a bit jumpy which is usually a sign I'm ready to do something else, but even if I don't do anything right away Fallschirmjäger I'll for sure be back as there are some items I need to add.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Crusader, Artizan and Foundry

Fallschirnjäger leaders, radio, forward observer + AWI casualty markers

Last post of the challenge! I'm ending it by adding some leaders to my fallschirmjäger in form of a Leutnant and his right hand man an Unteroffizier in addition to a radio operator and a forward observer.

I'll probably end up using the radio operator as a pressed in medic for most games until I actually paint up one for it.

The figures are all Artizan which are my favorite WWII models as I like both the character and extremely painter friendly design. The colors were mostly Vallejo with some Mig pigments for the rocks and such.

When I decided to do fallschirmjäger for this challenge I knew I would struggle to meet my points goal and alas I didn't make it, but I'm not disappointed as I mostly achieved what I wanted to get finished. I still have some more left to go and would have liked to get them done as well, but I'm still content with my progress.

After fallschirmjäger I may take a crack on painting some British or move on to Germans and Americans to Italy, but I cannot just decide yet.

I also decided to add some much needed AWI casualty's for my AWI project. I already have 4 for my Americans but decided I needed at least 4 more. Later I'll add some British and Germans as well to my collection.

The figures are of course Perry miniatures which constitutes  a great deal of my AWI collection to include my entire American forces and likely the Germans and French as well in the future and my British are a mix of Perry and Front rank for those curious.

I painted these with mostly Foundry paints with some Vallajo plus the usual Mig pigments on the base.

As for keeping track of casualties I prefer to use a number system on the base where you can turn the complete base as a kind of dial if you like instead of a dice construct as I find it blends a bit more and you don't lose the dice picking it up.

Thanks for viewing!
Minature Company- Artizan, Perry

Fallschirmjäger Tank Hunters

I decided to add some more support options to my force with some important anti- tank options in the form of a couple deadly panzerschreks and some nasty panzerfausts plus a Panzerbüchuse 38 Anti-tank rifle followed up by 5cm mortar team to keep the enemies heads down.

I had two of same models for the panzerfausts but by changing up their uniform I think that really helps for them not to look like repeats.

You may have noticed that all the Crusader miniatures are sculpted in the early war uniforms and I kept them that way without any late war camo. I did this for two reasons one being that troops wearing early uniforms works fine in the late war and second at some point I also want to build an early war Fallschirmjäger force and the Crusader figures will help towards that goal.

I hope this overhead shot works as I wanted to better show what the base and the prone figures look like that is a bit harder to see when looking head on.

As usual for my 20th century figures and beyond  I used mostly Vallejo paints and MIG  pigments for the dusting to get the colors I want.

Some people speculate what theater I designed these for and mostly it was for Normandy with some Italian veterans and of course Italy itself.

I still have some more fallschirmjäger on the way, but starting to see a small crack of light at the end of the tunnel, however still some ways to go yet before the job is done.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company-Artizan, Crusader

Fallschirmjäger MG42 and crew

Pushing forward  with my fallschirmjäger project and perhaps a bit over half way now I figure.Thought it was time to start adding some support elements to my force. First up is a MG42 mounted on a tripod with 5 crew and a junior leader if I decide to include one with the crew.

I based the figures individually for both causality removal and if I wish to take them off their base to place them in more tight places like buildings and such. Another note on basing in that I place my regular troops on 20mm bases but my leaders are on 25mm bases to easier pick them out. The large base is also pretty handy for moving the whole team around.

As usual for my fallschirmjägers I used mostly Vallejo paints and mig pigments followed by AP and highlights to get my results. I added a piece of wood which I painted up and added some moss to further enhance the base.

The figures are all Artizan and are some of my favorite models to paint as they are very painter friendly so I highly recommended them if your looking for models offering easy access for your brush.

I have more fallschirmjäger coming as I'm remarkably still able to keep some focus!

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Artizan Designs